I don’t know what Prof. Tracy is up to exactly, whether he is merely trying to get his readers to think or whether he is sincere in what he is posting. Satire, it’s true, isn’t always immediately obvious to everyone, but you would think that the cat would eventually come creeping out of the bag.

I begin what might have been more appropriately posted as a comment on Prof. Tracy’s blog by quoting what he seems to be asserting as ‘fact:’

“…about 3.4 million U.S. citizens were victims of stalking-harassment. Of these, 447,000 (13%) were coordinated stalkings committed by three or more individuals (see document 2 below).” (Source of quote: Memory Hole Blog / Title of Post: DOJ Acknowledged Significant Gang Stalking Problem in ’06)

Actually, that quote, on the basis of the evidence being used to prop it up, would read more accurately if it were written thus:

“…an extrapolated, purely speculative 3.4 million U.S. citizens — a number extrapolated from a survey of responses to a questionnaire sent out to a randomly selected ‘thought- to-be’ representative sample of 65,270 individuals — might possibly believe they were victims of stalking-harassment. Of those who actually responded to “Section F Question 4 of the Supplemental Victimization Survey” and, in particular, of the 980 who believed they had been victims of stalking (as defined by a report called ‘Stalking Victimization in the United States’), whether coordinated or otherwise, roughly 1.46 actual persons of the 980 believed they had been victims of coordinated stalking involving 3 or more perpetrators – DO SEE THE DOCUMENT BELOW.”

(Norm’s highly unscientific if mathematically correct method of reverse extrapolation from the data provided in the document below: 447,000 / 300,000,000 (U.S. 2006 population: roughly 300 million) works out to be a ratio of about 1.46 / 980 , or about 0.149% of the entire population of the United States or any other group of Americans thought to be representative of the population as a whole, and since the 980 individuals at hand are believed to be representative of the American population as a whole, we can safely conclude that it is indeed roughly 1.46 actual persons of the 980 of the survey at hand who believed they had been ‘gang-stalked,’ and not the original and roughly 127.4 actual persons of that group of 980 (i.e. “13% X 980 = 127.4”).)

I also like this howler from the document below: “. . .447,000 stated that they were stalked . . .” Did they? All 447,000 out of a total of roughly 1.46 individuals, or out of at most 980 individuals who actually ‘stated’ anything at all, but let us be generous and say, “out of at most a total of 65,270 individuals.” This means that, if we are to take the survey at its word and taking our most generous estimate of the actual total number of individuals involved in actually stating anything at all, the actual ratio of US citizens who may possibly if conceivably believe that they have been gang-stalked is in an actual reverse extrapolated ratio of 447 to 65.27, or a stunning 685.58% — assuming, of course, that “447,000” out of “65,270” individuals actually did state that they believed that they were stalked, as the report clearly states that they did state. On these numbers, then, roughly 2 billion reverse extrapolated chimerical Americans were actually gang-stalked in 2006. We can conclude, then, that the perpetrators did a lot of stalking, some of it even repetitively, some of it necessarily so, which can only mean that we are dealing with a lot of ‘repeat offenders,’ here. And I apologize for all and any of the repetitions I may be making.

Disclaimer: I’ve never been any good at mathematics. But I do have the temerity to think that some mathematics is pure and utter bullshit – in case I hadn’t made that sufficiently clear.

Do people get stalked? Yes, I’m certain that some do and it must be a terrible ordeal. I’m certainly not making light of that. But by whom and for what reasons people may be stalked, I can only guess. There are crazies and there are indeed black-ops. But what do I or anyone else really know about the extent and the nature of any of this? Not very much. I will refrain, therefore, from speaking out of ignorance. And I hope that you can see the “stretch” between the ‘report’ that is being used to substantiate the ‘claim’ and the ‘claim’ itself, that “…about 3.4 million U.S. citizens were victims of stalking-harassment.” And if you can’t see that “stretch,” to my mind, you are obviously susceptible to “belief,” and I would argue, “unsubstantiated belief.”